Elephants Evolving To Lose Tusks Due To Years Of Ivory Poaching

Researchers in Mozambique are working towards understanding the genetics of elephants who are born tuskless, and have found out this trait has afforded them a ‘biological advantage’.

During the 16-year Mozambique civil war, 90 per cent of elephants in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park were slaughtered for their meat and ivory.

One third of female elephants born after the war, which ended in 1992, did not develop their tusks. This is unusual when you consider how normally only two to four per cent of female African elephants would be born without tusks.

Researchers now believe elephant parents have passed the tuskless trait down to their offspring, as a means of protecting them from hunters.